The Five Times Lily called him Sander
by isitreallyevenpossible
Summary: She didn't use it during the light when there was nowhere to hide. She didn't use it when her words were casual fleeting things that didn't stay long enough on the tip of her tongue or in his ears. She saved the use of Sander for special occasion when nothing else seemed right.


_**A/N:**_**This has got to be some sort of record for me in terms of writing. This is like my third Lily/Lysander fic in three days but how cute are they honest to god. So if you enjoy this or the pairing check out my other two oneshots. Please let me know if you like it.**

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_**The Five Times Lily called him Sander**_

He was always Ly or Lysander in the day and to anyone else. Sander was not a nickname meant for just anyone and the people who'd tried it had gotten a good hexing. Except for her. She didn't use it during the light when there was nowhere to hide. She didn't use it when her words were casual fleeting things that didn't stay long enough on the tip of her tongue or in his ears. She saved the use of Sander for special occasion when nothing else seemed right.

**1.**

It is the first time she has ever used it. It is early in their friendship because it is early in their lives but somehow they still have that connection: little seven year olds who know in their hearts of hearts that already they have found something more than a disposable best friend. It is dark enough for it to practically be night and the mood already sad enough for both of them to mean it.

There has been a death in the family.

Nothing quite as serious as most of the adults have faced but a death nonetheless and a grief to be felt all the same. Lysander's pet cat had passed away. He had been a loyal pet they had all said. He had died a noble death. He had died of old age as a matter of fact. Still there is nothing that can be said to a child whose beloved animal has passed away

So he ran away. Just to the woods but in his mind it meant the same thing to him. He didn't want to see his mum's bright blue eyes fill up with tears as she lamented the death of any animal and told him to watch out for the Maeror who often appeared after death. He did not want to see his twin try to joke his way out or watch him sadly out of the corner of his too big little boy eyes. He did not want to listen to Aunt Hermione try to logical explain the grieving process or how death was a natural process.

He did not want to listen to anyone at all.

Which was why, curled up against a tree on the forest floor, when he first hears the snap of a footstep he nearly shouts at them to leave him alone. He desperately scrapes at his cheeks with the back of his hands to try to wipe the tears away.

"Ly it's me." Lily calls out from behind a tree a few metres away. He looks up from his spot staring at the ground.

He doesn't remember Lily being there before he had left but he doesn't question it. Even at that age you know not to questions Lily on how or what or why she did things. She had always been like that.

"Lily?" He calls out, watching as she emerges from her hiding place behind her tree.

"Didn't I just say?" She replies, before walking across the leaf strewn floor to sit beside him.

All sorts of emotions boil up inside him. He feels upset, he feels resentful but most of all he feels stupid. Half the people he knows are war heroes and yet here he is upset over a stupid pet.

"It's alright." She says, though she doesn't specify what exactly was alright, and then she takes his hand in hers. This would become the normal over the next few years to come (purely platonic of course) but to seven year old them it felt like a whole new world. Their sticky little palms clung together as they sat beside that tree and suddenly Lysander feels a little less like he is drowning.

"It'll all be okay Sander." She says, resting her tiny head on his for just a second.

And there it was: the dreaded nickname. Whenever Lorcan used it it was always sure to kick off some accidental magic in anger and cause a fight in the Scamander household. Since he was little he had always hated anyone using it. Maybe that had been because it didn't feel right on anyone else's lips. He didn't curse or shout or say anything when Lily said it. They just sat still until their legs grew stiff and Lily grew bored. Then she flung herself up to go wadding in the creek right near them and Lysander suddenly felt as if that was the best idea in the world. Suddenly he doesn't feel quite so bad. He still felt upset, weighing him down, but he also felt relief that Lily wasn't acting any differently. She still shoved and laughed as they ran bare feet through the water. She was still his best friend. He was still himself.

**2.**

They're young still: spring of fourth year. They've just turned fifteen and their friendship is still locked tight within in their grasps and nether have any intention of letting go. The world seems like it belongs to them and they belong to each other in ways they don't really know about yet.

But this time she calls him Sander it is not a time of joy. This isn't a word she is whispering into his ear in a playful tone or murmuring when they are alone at night contemplating the world. This is urgency. This is need. This is asking for comfort when hope is slipping further out of reach.

For the children this is their first taste of what it would've been like to grow up like their parents: haunted by an on-going war. For the first time in their lives they're realising what it was like for their parents not knowing who or if anyone will return home and knowing that one day that could be you disappearing and never returning. It turns their stomachs.

For the adults this is an unwanted remainder of the past that they tried to escape: a past where every breath could or would be your last. For the second time they remember the agony of waiting for their loved ones to return home and the knowledge that they might have to follow them. It is something that none of them wanted to experience again.

There has been an attack. A big one this time led by some pure blood extremists that had managed to escape the previous Auror roundups. It hit in Diagon Alley and almost immediately Harry was called into action. Shortly followed by Ron and then, surprisingly, Hermione. It had seemed that the Golden Trio were being called up specifically.

And then the hours went by.

It is getting late and later and no word from anyone.

They have all gathered in the Burrow now. The cousins all nestling in around the plump coaches and hardly fitting into to the small cosy house and Nana Molly is bustling around making cup after cup of tea for everyone in the hopes that it will change the atmosphere of the rooms.

In the hopes that it will bring her children (and adoptive children) home.

The Scamanders have gathered along with the assortment of Weasleys to wait with baited breaths for their all but Aunt and Uncles to come home. It is horrible and the air is thick with things unsaid. Things that people don't want to acknowledge could be possible or want to voice out loud.

Lily and Lysander are curled up together on the floor against the edge of the sofa. Their hands clasped together as if they're praying as one that their loved ones will return home. This is a jolt to Lily's system. Carefree Lily. Wild Lily. Unpredictable Lily.

She is experiencing her first taste of the war they left behind and it is leaving a bitter taste on her tongue.

He can feel it too. There is a numbness going on within him and he can feel it within Lily too. Neither of them had ever quite understood what their parents had gone through and only now are they getting the faintest wisp of what it was like.

She shivers, just a quick short burst, but he can feel her shoulder shake next to him. He holds her hand tighter squeezing it so hard it almost hurt just to remind her where she was. That he was here next to her and that she was surrounded by family. He felt a panic rising in his chest and knew it was not nearly as bad as the lump in Lily's chest at the absence of her father.

No one is batting an eyelid at them. This isn't the time for jokes about being too close to comfort or more than just friends. It is not the time for questions that Lily and Lysander wouldn't answer. It is just the time for comfort and clinging to each other until their family return home.

"It's okay Lily." He whispers into her hair but his voice is shakier than he would have liked it to be. He doesn't feel like it's all okay at all.

"Okay." She replies tonelessly and he can feel her shivering again.

He swaps the hands that they are holding and wraps his left arm around her, his right hand now holding hers tightly. She burrows into him like she is trying to hide from the reality of the world and loose herself in the familiar sent of Lysander.

"Sander." Her voice sounds lost like a little whimper and it's hurting him to see the girl who's constantly running away being stopped in her tracks. And all he can do is hold her close and hope that everything will be better in the morning.

Everything is better in the morning but he can still hear her quiet voice in his ear. He has never going to forget the brokenness of her voice when she whispered to him that night and she is never going to forget how he just held her tightly.

**3.**

They are sixteen now. That night of waiting is far behind them as they dance because in that moment they are young, carefree and poised on the edge of everything. They are also quite drunk.

It is a house party because Gryffindor have just won a match against some house or other but that was a few hours ago and still the party rages on. Someone snuck in fire whiskey and then a muggleborn brought vodka and then after that everything became vaguely blurry.

She is dancing and dancing and dancing. Her hair flies everywhere, a red halo surrounding her, but she doesn't care because she is completely and utterly free in that moment. There are people everywhere dipping in and out of view twirling and dancing and living. She spots Lysander across the room talking to some girl and she winks a big exaggerated one. He grins wildly back and gives her a wink too.

And then he is making his way over two shots in his hand and a wicked smirk plastered across his handsome face. She grins even wider if that is even possible and stops her twirling, balancing precariously on her bare feet and wondering for a fleeting second where her heels went before Lysander is already there offering her the drink.

"Bottoms up." He laughs and they down they shots in unison. They wince at each other as the heat passes through them but as it hits their stomach and spreads throughout the body they go back to grinning.

Her hands tingle and so to her feet as if she is itching to get back to the dancing. So she does. She dances and this time Lysander is right beside her dancing too. His head flings back wildly and his hair is messier than it has ever been before.

And suddenly they are no long dancing as separate entities but together. Hands are in hair or on hips as they dance until the song ends and until they are leant against each other as if they are the only things keeping each other standing. Which they could be.

Suddenly someone is mouthing something at them through the haze of music and lights and voice. Lily cracks open her eyelids as she staggers to a standing still one hand still clasped against Lysanders' shoulder.

It is a girl she doesn't really know, someone from a year or two above, and she is making her way over to them clearly staggering and intoxicated. But then again so is everyone else.

"Are you two together?" The stranger slurs waggling her fingers between them.

They laugh and then look at each other and then laugh again. They're protesting: no, no, no. They aren't together of course not they're best friends have been since they're little. It is punctuated with giggles and laughter as if the very idea that they're anything other than best friends is a hilarious joke. Though most people might disagree.

The girl raises an eyebrow but doesn't really say anything. Suddenly the people around them are taking a bit of interest: nudging and joking with each other as they eye up the two best friends. See there have always been rumours surrounding Lily and Lysander that they're together. They are seen constantly laughing and joking and one is never far apart from the other.

"So say if you kissed it wouldn't mean anything?" Someone else asked with a little wry humour in their voice. "You know, because you're just friends and that?"

They both shrug. It is not like they haven't kissed before when drunk and playing drinking games. It doesn't bother them because they're sure that their friendship is strong enough to withstand that. (Or they both secretly like the drunken kisses far too much to stop).

"Go on then." Someone else jokes but Lily and Lysander can't quite tell who it is in their drunken brains.

They shrug again.

And then they are kissing. It's different this time: it's not for a game or a joke and somehow they have managed to wrangle an audience. Then the song changes and people move aware distracted leaving Lily and Lysander kissing like they are the eye of the storm. His hands somehow find their way into her hair and he is running his fingers through them like he never wants to let go. She has her fingers hooked into the waistband of his pants and she uses this to pull him closer and closer and closer until every line of her is pressed against him. He nips against her bottom lip and she has to stop herself letting out a little moan because this is ridiculous and they're both just drunk and trying to prove a point except they aren't and it is so much more than that.

And in between kisses he hears it whispered into his mouth so softly he isn't quite sure if it is just wishful thinking or not.

"Sander."

They break apart, panting a little, trying to regain their lost breath. He wants to touch his finger to her kissed bruised lips in the wonder that it was him that caused it. And then suddenly it is like the world exists again and they remember where they are and why they're there and why they had to stop.

She smiles.

He smiles.

The music comes rushing back in to their ears and washes away the odd feeling that even in his drunken state he can't quite manage to shake. They're back to normal but he can't get rid of the memory of her lips urgent on his and his nickname breathed against him.

**4.**

She called him Sander the night when they slept together. Purely in a sleeping way and it was something they did quite often being best friends and around at each other's house almost constantly. Although he had never slept in her bed and he wasn't entirely sure that Mr Potter knew she slept in his. It was something he felt best not to mention to Uncle Harry anyway.

He had felt the shift in weight on the bed as she got up and cracked an eyelid open. They were seventeen, young and in the midst of their sixth year with the impending doom of the summer exams coming up when they return to school.

Lily sat on the ledge with her legs dangling out the window and a lit cigarette perched delicately between her lips.

"Lil?" He croaks his voice thick with sleep and dreams.

"Hmm?" She replies absentmindedly, kicking her legs back and forth against the side of his house.

"What's up?" He asks her, seeing the look on her face before she takes another drag. Suddenly he feels marginally more awake as he sits up and runs a hand through his messy golden hair.

However this is not the first or the last time that he has been woken up by her getting up in the middle of the night. Normally he cracks an eye open sees that she is just taking in the night sky outside, writing or smoking, and goes back to sleep. He feels differently this time. He can see it in the angle of her jaw and the tightness in her face. To most people it would be unnoticeable but he always notices. You see Lily Potter does her best to hide away from everyone but she has always found it hard to hide from Lysander even in the dark.

"Nothing." She replied, "I just couldn't sleep and thought maybe I would write something but it isn't working."

She looked back at the black notebook balancing precariously alongside her on the ledge and gave a little sigh.

He sits up for real this time.

"Do you ever think what the point is?" She asks him taking one last drag of her cigarette before putting it out beside her. "Just the point of everything? I do."

"Me too." He replies, "Of course I do. I think we all have to wonder about what the point of anything is sometimes."

"I wonder it all the time. I wonder why I do this and why I do that. I know most people tell me I'm unreadable and unpredictable. No one knows what quite to make of me. They'd be right because I don't know what to make of myself."

He likes listening to her speak. The lilt of her tone and her mesmerising words. But what he likes most about their middle of night talks is that she is unfaltering herself. There is always something hidden about Lily Luna Potter and at the night the walls become the thinnest they'll ever be: but only with him.

"I wonder why you do stuff sometimes too." He says, wanting to go closer to her but knowing it would just break the moment and the warm bed being comfier than imaginable. "But I do think I know why you do a lot of things. Or I hope I do."

"And why's that?" She laughs but it is almost humourless and something about it scares him a little.

"You do things to feel alive." He tells her, "I do it too. You do things so that every second of every day you feel as alive as you possibly can. You do things because that's the way it is. You do things because you are Lily Potter and you don't have to explain it even to yourself. Most of the time you explain nothing to me and I keep along just fine. But most importantly you do things to live. And I don't think that's pointless at all."

She swivels around at that, a smile playing on her lips.

"You know I don't think I give you enough credit." She jokes.

He smiles back.

"I've been trying to tell you that for years."

Then her small smile falters and she looks down at where her hands are intertwined on her lap. She twists them back and forth and back and forth.

"But aren't you afraid?" She says and suddenly she sounds like the scared little girl she never was. "That you're just going to live an entirely unremarkable life. That you're going to just die one day doing nothing that you ever wanted to do. That you're entire life will never be anything other than pointless. That you will live an ordinary life filled with ordinary things never achieving anything you set out to do?"

"I used to." He said, "But I don't think it's possible to live an ordinary life with you Lily. Let's face it you drag me into more crazy shit than I ever thought possible. Lily Potter ordinary? Unthinkable. And as long as I am along for the ride it's impossible for me too"

There's a pause and then…

"Thanks Sander." She whispers so quietly he's almost sure he imagined it. And with that she's shutting the window and drawing the curtains close. She crawls back into bed next and he winces at the sudden coldness of her. But he lets her snuggle into the pillows next to him anyway.

And just before he drifts off he swears he can hear it again.

"Thank you Sander."

**5.**

It is the night before graduation when everything goes down. They're leaving Hogwarts the next day with no plans for the future other than to pack a back and see where the galleons in their pockets take them.

But Lily of course has to sneak out one last time: for old time's sake. And of course Lysander is up for the adventure she brings.

They're outside, Lily having inherited the map from James who had got it from Teddy, having avoided all the professors underneath the similarly inherited invisibility cloak. It is dark and Lysander is sure that he can hear the first stirrings of a storm approaching but he isn't going to stop now when he sees Lily running across the lawn towards the lake her striking hair flowing behind her.

Suddenly he thinks that this will be the last time he sees Lily with the backdrop of Hogwarts at night and the lake spread before them underneath the stars and he can't help but feel a little melancholic. He doesn't want this to be the last chance he has to see her like this. He knows Lily inside and out and knows that she is never more herself than when she is nearly alone in the dark in a place where she shouldn't be. He knows that there is a type of Lily that he will never see again when they sail out tomorrow across the very same lake.

That is when the heavens open up above and Lysander runs head first into the rain after Lily. Heart full and head full and not knowing what or why or how he was here. Not listening to the confused thoughts he's thinking: not listening to his thoughts at all. Just listening to the rain as it soaks him through.  
He hears Lily laughing when he reaches her, laughing into the rain with her face opened wide to the heavens. He knows that what they're doing is dangerous and that any second now they could get caught and they should probably put on the invisibility cloak again but he can't bring himself to say any of that it.

They're graduating the next day anyway it's not like getting caught would really matter at all.

"Hey Lily." He whispers suddenly feeling like anything louder would feel wrong blanketed in the dark.

"Hey Ly." She whispers back, leaning against him without taking her eyes away from the big watery expanse in front of them.

"Nothings ever going to be the same again is it." She says after a few seconds of silence.

"I don't think so."

They let the rain pelt them for a few minutes. Stood in silence leaning against each other feeling their present slipping back into the past and watching their future looming scarily ahead of them. Lysander feels as if he was standing on the edge of a precipice unsure of what would tip him off the edge and not knowing if he really wanted to jump.

He hears her sniffling in front of him and tentatively turns her around to see if his suspicions are true. And he witnesses an extraordinary thing: Lily Luna Potter crying. There aren't big streams down her face or sobs in her throat but just a few drops of saltwater mingling with the rain.

Suddenly, or not so suddenly, he wants to kiss her. He wants to kiss her not because he is drunk, because he isn't, or because he was dared to or everyone seems to think it's a funny joke. He wants to kiss her in a way that when he wakes up the next morning it won't be tinged by headaches or the blurriness which makes him think that it might not even have happened at all. He wants to kiss her and kiss her and kiss her so much that he won't ever forget the taste of her on his lips.

He wants to kiss her in a way that isn't just friendship.

"Sander?" She says, cocking her head at the odd expression on his face. It's a look of dawning and he isn't letting go of his grip on her shoulders and she's trying to pretend that her eyes aren't tearing up and trying to figure out what's going on and she has absolutely no idea.

So he does the only thing that he can think of doing with the idea of her lips consuming her mind. He kisses her.

He kisses her hard. Lips clashing mouths open arms wrapped around each other.

"Is this okay?" He asks against her lips because although he feels her kissing him back he has to know he has made the right choice. He has to know that she wants it too.

"Of course Sander." She whimpers as his mouth moves from her lips to her neck and then back again.

This is so much better than the times before. Their lips no longer taste of vodka or firewhiskey but just of themselves. There is nothing blurred around the edges about this: it is the opposite, it is like her lips on his has moved them into more clarity. She's pulling him closer and closer by the waistband of his pants just like last time but this time he is pressing himself closer too like he can't get enough contact with her.

Neither of them care that the rain is still coming down in sheets and that lightning is now tracing a pattern across the night sky. Neither of them cares about anything but the feel of each other.

She lifts her hands to the back of his shoulders and her nails dig into the cloth of his back. She pulls him closer and closer: he bites her bottom lip and she moans into his mouth.

This is different. This is new. This is magical.

They aren't running away anymore, they aren't dodging from their true feelings and hiding it between lies and protests and we're just friends. They are done hiding.

You see Lily Potter does her best to hide away from everyone but she has always found it hard to hide from Lysander, even in the dark. It turns out all this time they hadn't been hiding from each other but themselves.

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_**A/N:**_**So thank you so much for reading this and I really hope you enjoyed! If you did you can favourite this story or follow me as an author for some more Lily/Lysander and other couples. I have two other Lily/Lysander fics now if you want to check them out. **

**Also a review would be very much appreciated like would honestly make my day. Thank you :)**


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